Black and White

Dear You,

When I was much younger, I prided myself on my liberal outlook -- my tolerance of others and their differences. Yes, I grew up in a monoculture: small-town Ohio. And goodness knows my father had no use for "others" -- and that list was pretty long. I had absorbed my share of sexist and racist jokes.

But I had outgrown all that. I had gone to a university, and I lived in the "inner city" of Rochester, NY, where my neighborhood only years before had been the scene of race riots. I talked a very good game. Why, "some of my best friends were black"!

Pride goeth before a fall, it is said. And there came that evening when I was returning home with my then-wife M. We pulled to the curb (we had no off-street parking there) and as I was about to get out I saw three young, black men walking toward us. They were in the middle of the lamp-lit street, and I calculated instantly -- three young black men vs. an adult male and female, and at that hour no one to see. "Let's stay in the car for a minute," I said as I pushed down my doorlock.

Moments later the three youths were passing by our car. One of them turned toward us, hooked his thumbs into both sides of his mouth, stuck out his tongue and waggled his fingers in that same way I once did to make fun of my friends in Ohio. All three laughed and continued on their way. I burned with shame. Years later, as I write this, I still feel mortified.

In a book called "In Black and White" a writer with the NY Times (I have forgotten his name) tells of similar experiences he had when a college student in Chicago. At night he would hear car door locks thunking down and see frightened faces as he passed by. In a short while his shame turned to anger, and he began to adopt threatening poses when he could. He became what his racist neighbors assumed he was: a menace.

And I wonder -- looking back a quarter-century, now -- what did I do to add to our national climate of racism? And have I atoned for it since?